Baldur's Gate - Retrospective @ RPG Vault

"Huge, beautiful and highly replayable, it is a 'must-have' for any serious or even casual RPG fan… Baldur's Gate will… return serious role-playing games to their rightful place at the center of the computer gaming universe." These words were part of the concluding paragraph in RPG Vault's review of BioWare's landmark late 1998 release that signaled the genre's emergence from a relatively barren half-decade or so. Published by the Black Isle Studios division of Interplay, it was a rarity, a title that generated extremely high expectations, then proved able to meet and even exceeded them. As a result, it garnered awards galore including best of the year from this site and many other publications. It also sold exceptionally well. This parlay launched the inexperienced Canadian studio toward the very top echelon of developers. The rest, as they say, is history.

I guess I'm just a sap, but I really took to Imoen in both games. If they had killed her off as previously planned, I may have rioted! When I played IWD, I actually recreated my BG1 party with her in it of course!